Do you suppose ethanol subsidies, totaling more than $6 billion, might be a good congressional target in an era of raging budget deficits?

I put that question recently to Colorado Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet. Bennet’s spokeman told me that while the senator “doesn’t think we can afford to endlessly pump federal dollars into subsidies for mature energy sources at the rate we have been,” he nevertheless “believes we need a more comprehensive approach that addresses these subsidies, be (they) for biofuels, oil and gas, or nuclear power.”

I think that’s a “no,” although maybe it’s a “maybe.”

Udall was more forthright, and interesting. He does not favor “singling out ethanol — with all the implications that might have for many of our rural communities,” unless “we are prepared to abandon all subsidies and federally driven investment incentives designed to strengthen domestic energy production.” (Alas, we’re not.) But he does oppose “an irrational tariff policy that excludes imports” of ethanol from places like Brazil, Australia and India.

As it happens, a bipartisan coalition of senators, ranging from Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., also favors eliminating or reducing that tariff. But they would go further than Udall and eliminate the subsidy for domestic supplies as well, which is up for renewal at year’s end.

As the 17 senators explained in a letter to Senate leadership, “The data overwhelmingly demonstrate that the costs of the current ethanol subsidy and tariff far outweigh the benefits . . . ethanol tax credits cost taxpayers $1.78 for each gallon of gasoline consumption reduced, and $750 for each metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions reduced.”

And if you don’t believe those senators, how about Al Gore? Gore may have broken a tie vote in the Senate over ethanol tax credits when he was vice president, but last month in Greece he admitted that “first-generation ethanol, I think, was a mistake.”

“It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies,” he added, noting the diversion of 40 percent of our corn crop into ethanol also “has an impact on food prices.”

To be sure, Gore continues to have a soft spot for the even more outlandish subsidies for biofuels produced from grasses and other non-edible organic material — although there still isn’t a single large-scale commercial producer of such fuels. Fifteen years from now, if Gore sticks with his schedule for confronting inconvenient truths, he may well be admitting that cellulosic ethanol subsidies were a boondoggle, too.

Make no mistake: Ending corn ethanol subsidies could hike fuel prices, especially if the tariff survived, because the federal renewable fuels standard requires oil companies to blend an escalating amount of ethanol into gasoline. If senators were truly focused on consumers, they’d call for an end to the fuels standard, too.

Still, it’s better to stick motorists with the tab for ethanol than force it onto taxpayers — and not just for budgetary reasons. Voters would have a better idea of the true cost of their government’s bizarre ethanol obsession if the impact were fully visible at the pump.

Many were not surprised by the prompt verdict Monday in the sexual-assault case in Denver involving Taylor Swift. A jury of six women and two men concluded within hours that a Denver radio host had groped Swift _ grabbed her butt beneath her skirt during a photo shoot, as his wife stood on the other side of Swift.

Touch not that statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville. Let it stand, but around it place plaques telling the curious that the man was a traitor to his country who went to war so white people could continue to own black people.